Kodiak Star - Kodiak Island Video Feeds

Views of Kodiak Star at the Alaska Kodiak Island Launch
Complex located approximately 41 miles south of the city of Kodiak.
Kodiak Star launched 9/29/01 at 10:40pm EDT (2:40 GMT 9/30/01)
aboard a 3 stage Lockheed-Martin Athena-I rocket. The launch attempt of
9/21/01 was posponed due to weather concerns. The launch attempt of 9/22/01 was scrubbed due to a downrange tracking problem and weather at the downrange tracking sites foiled a launch attempt on 9/23/01. On 9/24/01, a solar flare sent a stream of charged particles that exceeded limits set for the Athena's guidance system. The launch was rescheduled to no earlier than 9/29/01.

Kodiak Star is the first launch from the Kodiak Launch Complex on
Kodiak Island in Alaska. The mission will carry four satellites into
Earth orbit, the NASA sponsored Starshine 3 and three Department of
Defense Space Test Program (STP) payloads PICOSat, PCSat, and
Sapphire. The STP satellites will be placed into a 497 mile (800km)
orbit and Starshine-3 will be released at an altitude of 310 miles
(500km) and 67-degree inclination.

Starshine-3 is built by the Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium
and the Naval Research Laboratory. It weighs 220 pounds and consists of 1500 aluminum mirrors that are one inch
in diameter polished by over 40,000 students in 22 countries. Starshine-3
data will provide scientists with knowledge about how the Earth's upper
atmosphere reacts to fluctuations in the sun's ultraviolet radiation
during a sunspot cycle.

The Prototype Communications Satellite (PCSat) is the first in an
intended line of experimental satellites designed, constructed and
tested by midshipmen of the US Naval Academy. PCSat is to serve as a
positition status reporting and message communications satellite and
will augment the existing Amateur Radio Automatic Position Reporting
System (APRS) satellite.